Your friends have probably made fun of you for falling in love with the same “type” of sexy Russian girls, but you refused to believe them. Well, your friends might have been right all along because this new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has proven that people do have a tendency to fall for the same kind of partners over and over again.
So if you’re drawn to tall, smart brunettes, and your ex-girlfriends matched the description, don’t be surprised if you end up looking for a tall, smart dark-haired beauty on a Russian dating website.
How Accurate is the New Study?
As part of the study, the researchers conducted interviews with the former and current partners of hundreds of participants to conclude that people do have a dating type. However, this isn’t the first study to prove that people fall in love with the same type of persons.
The problem is, however, that all previous studies on that matter relied on self-reported data about breakups and past relationships. Meaning: participants in these studies were asked a series of questions about their former partners to find out more about the type of person that they prefer to date.
As a matter of fact, it’s not uncommon for men who’re currently looking for Russian women beautiful to generalize and find similarities between their exes simply because the exes are described in a negative light. Therefore, these previous studies were not able to give a fair assessment of the participants’ dating types.
The Study Shows That People Have a Dating ‘Type’
So every time a participant broke up with one woman and went on to date other single Russian girls, the participant’s former flame would be interviewed by the researchers to find out more about her “type” and personality traits. The subsequent girlfriends, meanwhile, would also get interviewed to collect data and add it to the primary participant’s file.
Then, the researchers were able to find similarities between the primary participants’ current and former partners, which eventually led to the conclusion that people have a certain dating “type” and they tend to be drawn to the same kind of persons.
Why Do We Keep Dating the Same Type of Partners?
To get into the details of the study, there were 332 primary participants who had multiple current and ex-partners interviewed by the researchers. When conducting the interviews, the researchers asked each person involved to describe their levels of the five personality traits:
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Neuroticism
- Openness to experience
In addition to this, the participants’ former and current significant others were asked to agree or disagree with a series of statements such as “I’m usually calm and recollected,” “I’m the type of person who makes plans,” and others.
After analyzing the responses, the researchers found a strong consistency in the participants’ partners’ personalities. There were obvious similarities in partnering patterns, which means the notion that all of us have a dating type isn’t that exaggerated or ridiculous.
The study did acknowledge though that after a breakup, some participants were keen to date someone who’s nothing like their ex or is even the complete opposite of their former love. However, eventually, they still ended updating that one specific “type” of partners. “So how to date a Russian girl if I’ve recently broken up and I certainly didn’t like the type of girl I was dating?” you may be wondering.
Are You ‘Doomed’ to Be Dating the ‘Wrong’ Type for the Rest of Your Life?
Having a “type” doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Sure, it may feel frustrating and depressing when you keep stumbling across the same problems in your relationships because you keep dating the “wrong” people, but you can actually improve the quality of your relationships if you acknowledge the fact that you have a type.
Think about it this way. Learn the lessons from your past relationships and use them with your new partner when you encounter the same problems as in your past relationship. Or, even better, try to adjust your “type” a little bit by looking for pictures of Russian women who would fit your “type” but have healthier personality traits to prevent what seems like an inevitable breakup.